Living steadily in the world of gods and mystery

"What a fantastic item!"

On the way back, Chen Li still couldn’t stop thinking about the "Spirit Crystal" from the auction.

"If I could get one, my cultivation progress would surely skyrocket."

Chen Li thought to himself.

Unfortunately!

He could only look.

Not only was his strength inadequate, but his pockets were also embarrassingly empty.

Including the 41 top-grade Spirit Stones he spent today, his total savings now came up to just 985 top-grade Spirit Stones. This was after adding the blood money from the last time he was ambushed, but it was still far short of the closing price of 1,350 top-grade Spirit Stones.

Among Foundation Establishment cultivators, he was indeed considered wealthy, but compared to Golden Core cultivators, he was still a pauper.

"Sigh, forget it, forget it. As long as I can endure the loneliness, keep my moral integrity, and live frugally, my cultivation will grow, I’ll have Spirit Crystals, I’ll have everything."

After consoling himself for a while, Chen Li felt much calmer.

...

For the current Chen Li, learning advanced techniques was as simple as eating and drinking.

Even the Void Flight Escape Skill, a Second Order high-level technique, took him only one day to learn. Strictly speaking, it was even less than five hours in one morning.

Then, he leveled up using the Phantom Skill.

He became proficient on the same day.

The next day, he had already mastered it.

...

More than a month later, the Void Flight Escape Skill had reached max level.

...

Early morning.

The sun was just rising.

It painted the clouds on the horizon a thorough red.

Now in the deep autumn, everything was withering, presenting a scene of decline.

Hundreds of miles away from Red Pillar City, in a desolate wilderness.

Chen Li was suspended hundreds of meters in mid-air, looking down.

This place was near the mountains, desolate and uninhabited, with rolling hills in the distance.

He quietly observed for a good while. Not a single cultivator passed by, so he felt relieved to fly down from the air.

Because of the flying prohibition ability of Red Pillar City’s City Defense Array, Chen Li, even after practicing the "Void Flight Escape Skill" to max level, had never used it once. He didn’t feel safe testing it near Red Pillar City, so he had to go further away.

The reason he put so much effort into this.

Was because he was afraid the test would make too much noise.

This wasn’t Chen Li being overly cautious and making a mountain out of a molehill.

A regular Void Flight Escape Skill would enable a fourth layer Foundation Establishment cultivator to fly with the speed of a fifth layer cultivator controlling a Second Order top-grade flying sword.

But a max level Void Flight Escape Skill was comparable to an Eighth Level Flight Skill of the Second Order.

What did that mean?

The speed would be on par with a ninth layer Foundation Establishment cultivator, controlling a Second Order superior-grade flying sword.

This was nearing the speed of a Golden Core!

Near bustling Red Pillar City, if he dared to fly at full strength, that would certainly attract everyone’s attention, even drawing a Golden Core wouldn’t be surprising.

Chen Li first used the Fortune Seeking and Disaster Avoiding Skill.

Detecting the fortunes and dangers around him.

Then he began to release the Void Flight Escape Skill.

Chanting the incantation, forming the seals, channeling Spiritual Power, all in one go.

The next moment.

With a soft "hum," Chen Li was enveloped in a layer of Mana that shimmered like substance, his body lightened, his feet left the ground, floating slightly.

With a thought, his body suddenly moved, shot up suddenly from the ground like a beam of light, and headed toward the distant sky.

"It feels similar to other Flight Skills, but it’s more easily controlled, making flight much more free and unrestrained."

Chen Li muttered to himself, intentionally controlling his speed to fly "slowly" for a while using the ordinary Void Flight Escape Skill, and after getting used to it, he began to constantly accelerate:

One hundred and fifty meters per second.

...

Two hundred meters per second.

...

Three hundred meters per second.

...

Unfortunately, even when Chen Li pushed his speed to the limit, he still did not exceed the speed of sound. He sped along, but he didn’t feel the slightest bit of wind in his face. The protective silver aura around his body was like a shield, completely cutting off air resistance and making for an excellent flying experience.

Indeed, it was just so.

This protective silver aura was defensive.

Upon testing,

its defense could even reach the strength of Second Order Level Five.

An average cultivator at the mid-stage of Foundation Establishment simply couldn’t breach it.

Of course, the ordinary Void Flight Escape Skill could not possibly have such a defense; at most, it could only cut off air resistance.

This was the result of continuously optimized techniques.

After flying at high altitude for a while, Chen Li began to decrease his flying height and started to fly close to the ground.

At a speed approaching that of sound, like an arrow released from its bow, he trailed through the grasslands, the woodlands, the lakes, leaving a path as if a hurricane had passed, with broken branches, shattered leaves, and flying sand and rocks in disarray.

After flying for just a few minutes and having his fill of excitement, Chen Li slowed down and landed.

"This speed... with my current abilities, I fear no one below Golden Core could catch up to me!" Chen Li said with a delighted face, "From now on, in this vast world, I can also..."

He was delighting in his thoughts,

when suddenly a sense of alarm surged in his heart, causing his heartbeat to nearly skip a half beat.

The still-active Fortune Seeking and Disaster Avoiding Skill sensed danger approaching from afar at high speed.

"What’s going on!?"

Without time to think further, Chen Li hastily used the Earth Escape Skill and quickly burrowed underground.

He had just disappeared when.

A streak of escaping light flew quickly from a distance, and with a light "huh," it performed a 180-degree sharp turn in midair, not uttering a word, and broke the sound barrier, flying back in the direction it came from at an even higher speed.

The rolling thunder-like sounds of a sonic boom followed continuously.

It was clearly a Golden Core cultivator.

In just a few breaths, the figure had completely vanished into the horizon.

Only after the Golden Core cultivator had left did Chen Li emerge from underground an hour later, his heart still pounding:

"I didn’t expect that there would be Golden Core cultivators wandering about here!"

Even though it seemed that the other party was just passing by and was frightened away by the suspicion of an ambush, it was actually quite dangerous.

This was not Red Pillar City, but a deserted wilderness rarely visited by anyone. It was all too normal for a Golden Core cultivator to casually kill a Foundation Establishment for some domestic funds with no one ever knowing.

Chen Li would never overestimate a Golden Core cultivator’s character simply because of their high cultivation level.

Golden Core cultivators are still human, with all the same emotions and desires, fundamentally no different from ordinary cultivators, and likely having killed more and being even more indifferent and heartless towards life. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"Alas, the range of the Fortune Seeking and Disaster Avoiding Skill is really too short. It only gave an alert when danger was nearly upon me. Had I not reacted quickly, made a decisive move, and rapidly escaped underground, I would have likely been exposed to their sight, and whether I lived or died would then be entirely in another’s hands," Chen Li thought to himself.

Of course, as a First Order technique, he couldn’t be too demanding.

Chen Li felt that ever since the Returning True Sect had been destroyed and he relocated to Red Pillar City, his luck had been foul.

Not long after arriving in Red Pillar City, he encountered remnants of the Tianxing Sect.

He killed them.

Then things calmed down for less than half a year.

He took a trip to the Huoyun Sect’s gate and was ambushed on his return.

He killed them too.

And then there was today.

It was hard enough for him to take a trip outside, and he even chose an isolated location on purpose, yet he still encountered a Golden Core.

Whom he... frightened away.